We just finished our back-to-back oil painting workshops with HongNian Zhang and Lois Woolley. We had 5 students who took advantage of the back-to-back discount for these two workshops.

HongNian’s workshop started with some still life set ups on the first day and then worked from a live model for then next two days.

And now for a brief intermission featuring the lilting melody of some Irish Harp and Violin music performed by Fiona and Gillian Graham.

Fiona and Gillian were attending the Irish Music Festival classes while staying at the inn with their mom, Mary Graham, who was taking the workshop with HongNian. What a talented family!

Immediately following HongNian’s workshop, Lois’ workshop started.

I didn’t have the chance to snap any photos, but Lois’ started the class out working on a clay model of a person’s head. The purpose of which was to really get a hands on feel for the anatomy of a human head — to get a better understanding of the angles and planes used in a portrait. What a unique idea!

The remaining 4 days of the workshop were spent working with live models.

The lillies are blooming all over the property and everyone is enjoying the lovely scent, including this butterfly.

We get thousands of junk emails an hour. I personally delete about 100 every 10 mins. So, if you are worried that an email you sent us was over looked, please put Workshop in your subject line to get it to our attention.

Thanks.

Charles Van Horn has answered my plea and has provided us with some fabulous pictures from Alvaro Castagnet’s workshop here this past June. Thank you Chuck!

Don’t you wish you had been there? Well, Alvaro will be back again in 2010 – May 2 – 8 to be exact.

It has been brought to my attention that we may have somehow missed blogging about Esterita Austin’s workshop here last year! So making up for lost time, I’m blogging about it now and I have lots of great pictures.

Make note of the fun time had by this group, because Esterita will be back teaching a workshop on still life and portraiture in fabric next year. The dates for the workshop are March 29 – April 4, 2009. We are taking sign ups now, but the color brochure and the class information will be available sometime this Fall.

So here is the Queen herself.

And some of the royalty in the workshop.

Now for some pics of the wonderful work produced by this class!

Aren’t these fabulous? Some were created by total beginners!

Hope you enjoyed the show. Don’t miss the production of the next!

And now the the continuation of the story!

As you know cellphone service can sometimes be iffy, depending on your phone and service plan, so a special “phone booth” was set up for Susan to make her calls. I don’t know who set it up but it seemed to work because I saw Susan sitting there with her cell at least once a day. In case the picture isn’t clear, this cell tower was constructed from one of our indoor painting easels, a light stand, and of course duct tape! The sign says “Susan’s Phone Booth.” Clever.

Here is one of the paintings by Ann Cox. I thought it turned out nicely.

Tom L found a good spot to paint in the corner by the creek.

Here is Carole K and Sandra N painting in the nice air conditioned studio.

Mark had knee surgery on July 3rd, so while he recovered, I filled in as chef for a couple of the dinners. One of the dishes I made was Ratatouille with mild Italian sausage. This is one of my favorites and I’ve made it for years. It is the perfect summer dish because you can use all of the fresh summer vegetables: summer squash, zucchini, red and orange peppers, eggplant, plum tomatoes. It is seasoned with oregano, thyme, and basil. The vegetables roast in the oven first, then you add the browned sausage cut into chunks and roast until is it is a bubbling yummy mixture. I always like to make extra because it is even better the next day as leftovers!

Susan Sarback, the founder of The School of Light and Color, in Fairfield, California was here last week teaching an outdoor workshop to an enthusiastic and fun loving group of artists.

Jerry kept the group laughing (and not because he gave an impromptu salsa demonstration after dinner one night.)

Everyone enjoyed the lively dinner time conversation.

Here is Susan giving a demo in the studio. She started the class with still life in the studio on the first day.

The class spent several days painting around the Greenville Arms when the weather was iffy. (It only rained a little bit the entire week, but it kept threatening!)

Well, Blogger is acting up again. So I’ll have to continue this post later with more pictures.

I just spent several happy hours curled up with a treasure trove of inspiration. The new book, Masters, Art Quilts by Martha Sielman published by Lark Books is most definitely worth getting for your librarys

The thing I like the most about it is that rather than the usual one or two images per artist, this book has multiple pages full of work by each of the 40 artists highlighted in this book. Being able to see this range of work really gives you a much more thorough glimpse into the artist’s voice. Each section includes insights from the artist. The insights touch upon their process or their inspirations.

I enjoyed seeing the familiar and the new. Many of the artists I already knew about (some I’ve taken workshops with or I have hired them to teach workshops for the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops), but there were also many artists who’s names I’d heard of, but have never before seen their work or some that I’d not heard of.

It is a wonderful chronicle of some of the most talented artists working in fiber today. I hope that this chronicle continues in more volumes of this book. It would make an excellent encyclopedia of fiber art. I immediately decided to buy a duplicate of this book to put in the inn library because I didn’t want to let go of my personal copy! I’ll also be adding it to the stock of mini fiber art supply store at the inn. It is that good.

The artists included in this book are: (Those who have taught at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops are highlighted in bold)

Jane Sassaman
Michael A Cummings
Ita Ziv
Cher Cartwright
Noriko Endo
Deidre Scherer
Carolyn L Mazloomi
Hollis Chatelain
Linda Colsh
Charlotte Yde
Joan Schultze
Judith Content
Kyoung Ae Cho
Jette Clover
Eszter Bornemisza
Pauline Burbidge
Yvonne Porcella
M Joan Lintault
Katie Pasquini Masopust
Nancy N Erickson
Susan Shie
Caryl Bryer Fallert
Jeanette Gilks
Jane Burch Cochran
Pamela Allen
Therese May
John W Lefelhocz
Miriam Nathan-Roberts
Jenny Hearn
Terrie Hancock Mangat
Wendy Huhn
BJ Adams
Inge Mardal & Steen Hougs
Chiaki Dosho
Inge Hueber
Michael James
Velda E Newman
Anne Woringer
Clare Plug
Elizabeth Brimelow

Alvaro Castagnet was back at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops teaching the Mastery of Tonal Values. When a student asked if the color red was his “signature”, he replied No, I just like the color red. Red is the color of passion and you must have passion about your art!

There is always a passionate group of painters here during Alvaro’s workshops.

These photos were taken while the group was in one of our nearby Hudson river towns, Athens. Athens is just 20 minutes away from the inn and has a nice little park right on the river’s edge, with a view of the Athens’ lighthouse.

The week passed too quickly! It was over before I realized I hadn’t taken enough photos. So if anyone in the workshop took some nice shots, I’d love to included them on this blog. Just send them my way.

For those who missed this great workshop, Alvaro will be back again in 2010. The dates will be May 2 – 8, 2010. So mark your calendars now.

Today is the final day of the workshop with Susan Sarback, a wonderful instructor from Fairfield, California. She taught a very interesting technique that she called “Four Stages to Radiant Color.”

I’ll be posting pictures from this lively class in a couple of days.

We had another nest of robins on the front porch in the holiday wreath that I was late to take down! Just as I was going to remove it and replace with a different seasonal wreath, I noticed the robin’s nest. There were three babies and they have all left the nest at this point. But I see them hopping around on the lawn outside my office window, with the mom still bringing them tidbits to eat.

I guess I now have no excuse for leaving the wreath still hanging!